


The Storyteller

by calloftherunningtide



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Community: dw_femslash, F/F, Gen, Time War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 04:36:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calloftherunningtide/pseuds/calloftherunningtide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leela's story begins with one Time Lord and ends with another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Storyteller

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Doyle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doyle/gifts).



> This story was originally written for [the DW Femslash Ficathon 2010](http://dw-femslash.livejournal.com/100246.html).
> 
>  **Prompt:** Romana, Leela and their banter.

“I am going to tell you a story.”

“Tutor said that we shouldn’t listen to your stories, Leela. He said that they were illogical.”

The speaker was small and fair haired, his wide eyes blinking up at Leela as he clutched his Roentgen blocks to his chest. They were so old, these Time Lord children. Far older than they should be. Their tutors heaped too much on their young shoulders and it was fortunate that they did not break before they were fully grown. Leela, who had learned the lessons of life around the fires of the Sevateem, couldn’t understand the way the people of Gallifrey tried to teach. Their methods were truly _illogical_.

“Even when they are true?”

“Are your stories true, Leela?”

“Why would I lie?”

The child probably had a great many answers to that, but, when he did not voice them, Leela continued.

“It is a story about a man …”

“A Time Lord? Or …?”

“Or an alien?” Leela finished, raising an eyebrow, “You think everyone who is not like you is alien.”

The girl who had spoken flushed a little, but her gaze was so steady that it earned her a slight nod of approval. She reminded Leela of Romana, though any Time Lord with strength and spirit tended to remind her of Romana. It was good to see that sort of strength here in the nursery, taking root long before the prejudices that would start to grow in the Academy.

“You’re not an alien, are you, Leela?” asked the boy with the disapproving tutor. As much as she was loathed to admit it, he had a certain spirit of his own. It rang out from him as clearly as any bell, but, because it was too close to the spirit that she had seen in seen in Andred, Leela found it difficult to spend time with him. She had no desire to be reminded of her husband. Not now. His death had never been avenged, even if something – his spirit, perhaps – told her that she could kill and kill for the rest of her days and never truly fill the space that Andred had left in her heart.

“I have one heart beating in my chest, not two.”

She held out her wrist, allowing the boy to take her pulse – elementary, for a child who would soon be taught to stop his own hearts – and reveal her true origins.

“Isn’t that … inefficient?” he ventured.

“It suits me well enough. And my people.”

“Oh, yes, Leela! Tell us about the Sevateem!”

She wasn’t fond of the way they treated her people as an oddity. As if the tribe was another case study in one of their text books or a cautionary tale from their teachers. How could she make them understand using nothing but _words_? The Sevateem were far more than that. _She_ was far more than that. It was about instinct. It was about the cool weight of her father’s knife in her hand as she hunted and sound of the wind rippling through the trees. It was about the crackle of the fire and the stories of the old ones. Even Romana, who knew her best of all and held the parts of her heart that Andred’s memory had not claimed, fell short of true understanding. The Time Lords could only guess and their guesses would never be enough.

“No,” she said, firmly, “I will tell you a different story today. I will tell you about this man. His name was the Doctor …”

The children gasped.

“You knew the Doctor?”

“Does he really fly in a TARDIS with a broken chameleon circuit?”

“Is it true that President Romana used to travel with him?”

“Did he meet _Omega_?”

“Do you wish to tell the story?” she asked archly, but she was smiling. It was strange to see the children talking so enthusiastically about the man that their elders treated with such contempt. The Doctor was usually as much of an other as she was, despite the two hearts beating in his chest.

“No, Leela! I’m sorry. Will you tell us?”

“The Doctor travels through the stars. He says he is not lonely …”

“Is he lonely? I wouldn’t like travelling on my own.”

“You wouldn’t like to travel at all. You want to work in the Archives when you grow up!”

“You want to work in the Chancellery Guard! You won’t get to travel either.”

“… and he has many friends who accompany him on his travels, so perhaps he is not,” Leela continued seamlessly, ignoring the brief interruption and silencing the children with a dark glance, “One of these friends was a woman. A Time Lord, like himself. She was as cold as ice when they first met, but her travels allowed her to thaw. She saw that life outside Gallifrey could be as beautiful as life in the Citadel …”

“Oh, yes! Alien planets! Will you tell us about alien planets, Leela?”

Leela wasn’t a natural storyteller. She had been too focused on becoming a warrior to pay much attention to the story weavers among the Sevateem. Their tales of adventures had thrilled her, yes, but she had not wanted to tell any of her own. She had been waiting for them to compose ballads about her. (Perhaps they did. She was too far away to hear them now.) Their art was not something she had wanted to learn until it was far too late. Now, she told stories not because storytelling was where her true passion lay, but because she wanted the children to learn about Romana and what Romana had done for Gallifrey. Her deeds deserved to be remembered.

(Leela wanted to tell them about the Key to Time and E-Space and Shada and the Pandora creature, but the story, inevitably, started with the lonely Doctor and his old blue TARDIS.)

“Leela? The Madam President wishes to see you.”

And if Romana called, Leela would always - _always_ \- respond.

“I am coming, Annos.”

“But you haven’t finished your story!” cried an audience member. Soon, similar protests were springing up throughout the nursery. Leela rose to her feet with a smile tugging at her lips. Her animal skins looked as out of place here as they did in the Capitol, but that didn’t seem to matter to the children. They looked at her and saw Leela, not the savage. She hoped they would remember _that_ , even if the steady passage of time eventually caused them to forget her stories.

“It does not have an ending yet.” The stories all started with the Doctor – even her own story started with the Doctor! – but they ended with Romana. Gallifrey’s saviour. Gallifrey’s _future_. “It is still being written.”

***

Romana was sitting at her desk when Leela arrived in the presidential suite. Her head was bent over the desk, blonde hair spilling down the back of her heavy crimson robes. She looked like a statue. Leela could easily imagine loyal subjects leaving offerings of fruit and grain at her feet. It was a shame that the Time Lords did not believe in such things. Romana often needed to be reminded of how loved – how _needed_ – she was.

“Have you been visiting the nursery again, Leela?” she asked, without looking up.

Leela stepped closer before answering, peering over her friend’s shoulder at the papers on the desk. She made no attempt to cover them up and the gesture, although rather small, spoke of trust and friendship and a dozen other things that Leela couldn’t put into words.

It wasn’t as if she could read much of what was written there – Gallifreyan text was twisted and complicated and the words swirled across the page like oil in a pool of water – but Romana knew that she could read enough of it. Once her sight had been returned to her, Romana had taught her to make sense of the more common words, finishing the lessons that Andred had started before his disappearance. She had not been a patient teacher, but Leela found that she missed the quiet moments they had spent together in the Romana’s chambers. Their lessons, like so many other things, had been forgotten following the first wave of Dalek attacks.

“Yes. I like it there. The children do not judge me.”

“They’re young,” said Romana archly, “I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities for them to acquire the usual Time Lord prejudices.”

“No,” Leela argued, “I will not give them the chance. That is why I visit so often. I hope they will grow up to be like you.”

She had obviously said something right, though she did not know what. Romana actually smiled at the comment, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes and turning to face Leela for the first time.

“It could be worse, I suppose. We certainly can’t afford to have them all growing up like the Doctor. We don’t have enough ships to supply their rebellions.”

Leela nodded. It was a joke, but there was an edge to her words and that scraped most of the humour away. Unless you looked closely, it was impossible to tell that Gallifrey had recently – from the perspective of a Time Lord, at least – escaped from the bitter struggles of a civil war. Only the empty TARDIS bays and the ruined buildings on the fringes of the city told the true story. Romana was doing an excellent job of holding the High Council – and the rest of the planet, for that matter – together, but the effort of it was written on her face. 

Gently, the warrior rested her hands on Romana’s shoulders, massaging the muscles in an attempt to draw the tension out. Inexorably, and with a soft sigh that thrilled Leela to the core, the Time Lord relaxed into her touch.

“You have not been sleeping,” Leela chastised. Romana didn’t like to be lectured, but Leela was a warrior. She was not frightened of her scathing glances and sharp tongue. “You will not be able help anyone if you do not help yourself first.”

“I’m quite well, Leela. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“I am your bodyguard,” said Leela firmly. She wouldn’t be satisfied with the excuses that Romana reserved for the members of the High Council. They had no real meaning. They were just words, strung together until the listener allowed themselves to be deceived. “And I am your friend.”

“And that gives you the right to worry, I suppose?” Romana sighed again, in a very different tone. “Fine. A short break and nothing more.”

“Will you eat something?”

“You’re making me feel like a Time Tot, Leela.”

“The Time Tots are not as stubborn as you are.”

Somewhat reluctantly – although it was impossible to tell if she was unwilling to leave her papers or disinclined to step away from Leela’s touch – Romana stood up, moving across the room to take a seat in a cushioned armchair. Her robes made a soft sighing sound as they pooled around her legs, and, although they looked both uncomfortable and impractical, Leela found it difficult to picture her friend in anything else. The warrior wondered, sometimes, if Romana even had a body beneath the material, but she knew that such thoughts were foolish. When Romana stood silhouetted against a particularly bright light, her bodyguard could – and, when she knew that she was not being watched, _did_ – trace the curves of graceful limbs with her new eyes.

“Your storytelling won’t be able to cure them of that, you know. All Time Lords are stubborn.”

“Stories are not cures. They are just … stories.”

The wide windows behind her provided a breathtaking view of mountains beyond the Citadel. Leela was inordinately pleased to discover that Romana’s eyes were fixed on her instead. There was a teasing smile on a mouth that was too often set in a frown.

“You’ll have to tell them to me one day.”

“They are still being written.”

Romana gave her a tired smile.

“One day, Leela. One day.”

***

“And so,” said Leela, turning her head to better count the steady beats of Romana’s hearts. “The Dog virus …”

“Dogma virus, Leela.”

“… the _Dogma_ virus was no more. After many months of fear and suffering, the Time Lords were free. Gallifrey – Gallifrey, with its sky like fire and its deep red grass and the silver trees that shine when the suns set – was at peace.”

For a long time, Romana, combing her fingers wordlessly through Leela’s dark hair, remained silent. When she spoke, her voice was soft, but, beneath that, as heavy as a stone.

“It’s a beautiful story, Leela.”

Stories were just stories, but they had a power that was all their own.

The warrior – the President’s bodyguard and, since the tides of war had turned against the Time Lords, the President’s lover – rolled on to her side, propping herself up on an elbow to study Romana’s face.

“But?”

“But that’s all it is. A story. You know as well as I do that it wasn’t like that.”

No. It had not been like that. In order to stop the Dogma virus and save her people, Romana had been faced with impossible decisions and terrible choices. She had succeeded, in the end, but the costs of that success would haunt until her until the end of her lives.

“I know.”

“Then why in Rassilon’s name are you telling it to people?” asked Romana, with a laugh that was not quite a laugh.

“Because I am a _storyteller_. I don’t want to tell stories that are truthful. I want to tell stories that give the people of Gallifrey hope. They need to remember what you have done.”

“So they won’t hold our defeat at the hands of the Daleks against me?”

(Leela was part of Romana’s closest circle of advisors and she knew that the fall of Arcadia had not been the first true Dalek victory of the war. But it was the first Dalek victory that Narvin, Braxiatel and the others had not been able to cover up. At last, the ordinary Time Lords – those who were not soldiers or medics or part of the inner workings of the Capitol – were beginning to realise that they might not win the fight they had been forced into. The knowledge had devastated them.)

“Daleks do not _have_ hands.”

“You know what I mean, Leela.”

Romana pulled away from her human companion, sitting on the edge of the bed and wrapping herself in one of the sheets. A moment later, she turned her head – Leela had to fight the urge to reach forward and pull her down for a kiss – to give her bodyguard an inscrutable look.

“You’re the warrior as well as a storyteller, Leela. Tell me, do _you_ think we can win this war?”

She was a better storyteller than had thought. The lies came easily and unhurriedly to her tongue. No one – not Romana, not the Doctor, not the finest storytellers of the Sevateem – could have guessed her true thoughts.

“Yes. We will win, Romana. I am sure of it.”

***

The woman was old – _impossibly_ old – but her bright blue eyes were sharp and intelligent. She regarded Sarah Jane, who had tracked her down after receiving a rather unusual tip off from a friend who worked at the hospital, with suspicion, but at least she hadn’t thrown her out of the room. Yet.

According to her friend, the woman had appeared out of nowhere. She was human – a myriad of tests had confirmed that much – but, to the astonishment of every specialist that came in to study her, she seemed to be ageing with impossible rapidity. The ambulance had driven a woman in her late twenties into the hospital after finding her wandering along a Cardiff street, but the woman in the bed was in her eighties at the very least.

It was remarkable.

It was impossible.

It was the sort of story that Sarah Jane Smith – journalist and freelance alien hunter – _loved_ to investigate.

“And what does a journalist _do_?” the woman demanded.

“I … well, I write articles for newspapers,” Sarah Jane explained, “Stories about things that have happened.”

“You are a storyteller?”

“I suppose you could put it that way,” admitted Sarah Jane with a wry smile, but, before she could elaborate, the woman cut across her.

“Good. Her story should not die with me.”

“Die? Oh, you’re not dying. The doctors will soon find a way to treat what’s happening to you.”

“I am. Your saw bones do not understand. Without the … without the _biofields_ , the years I have lived will finally catch up with me.”

She sounded so _calm_. Her bravery shamed Sarah Jane into silence.

“You must tell her story for me.”

“Who’s story? And who am I supposed to tell it to?”

“To anyone who will listen. She sealed her planet off from time and space to save your world. To save every world.”

“Who?”

Leela smiled tiredly, fighting the desire to close her eyes and surrender to slumber. She could not sleep yet. She _would_ not sleep. 

On Gallifrey, she had used her stories to amuse children and to calm frightened Time Lords. On Earth, the words would serve as a eulogy to a woman who deserved – no, who _needed_ – to remembered.

“Her name,” said Leela, speaking with love and devotion, “Was Romana ...”


End file.
